King John of Jingalo Part 31

Then the Queen did her best to cover matters; but it was not a great success. "I knew that she wanted to get home," she murmured. "And she is so impulsive; sometimes there is no holding her at all."

"I must apologize," said the King. "This is really quite unaccountable."

The Prince's eye flashed with a curious light; he smiled good-humoredly.

"I think it is very interesting," said he. "When will it be allowed that I shall see her?"

CHAPTER XIII

A PROMISSORY NOTE

I

On their return to Jingalo the Princess heard from her parents how badly she had behaved.

"But I had to do it!" she protested. "After what that paper had said, and all the other things, how else could I show that I hadn't come on purpose?"

"And pray, do you always mean running away from him?" inquired the Queen.

"I shan't go to Bad-as-Bad again, I know that."

"But if he comes here."

"Why, are you going to ask him?"

"He has asked himself," said her father.

"Oh!" This came as a surprise.

"But, of course," he continued, "if you mean to go on being rude to him, it wouldn't do."

"I have never been rude to him!" protested Charlotte. "I only refused to be trapped into meeting him. I shouldn't have minded if it had just been by accident; but it wasn't."

"I'm afraid it can never be by accident now," replied her father. "But you needn't be here when he arrives, or when he goes; though in between whiles, of course, you would have to meet him. And then--well, if you wanted to see more of each other--he might come again."

Charlotte showed her distaste for any temporizing of that sort. "The only difference I can see," she remarked, "is that first you were for offering me to him openly and now I'm to be a sandwich."

"You are not to be anything you don't like, my dear," said her father with gentleness. "But you know, child, we have not the whole world to choose from; being kings and queens and princesses doesn't make life a fairy tale."

"But it does, when we have to end by marrying princes. That's the bother of it."

"Well, I am trying to make it easier for you. Oh, I admit the drawbacks; but why make them out worse than they are?"

Charlotte's moods always softened under her father's cajolery; not that she was more fond of him than of her mother; but these two had more ground for mutual sympathy and understanding; and pity for his vaguely hara.s.sed countenance was never far absent from her heart.

"I am having just now," the King went on, "a very trying and disturbing time--in ways that I don't want to talk about. Do try, child, not to add to my anxieties."

Charlotte, feeling compunction working within her, thought hard for a while. "Before he comes----" she said, and stopped. "Papa, when does he come?"

"Not till after the winter session has opened--perhaps about Christmas."

"Well, before he comes, then, I want to go away quite by myself for three weeks or a fortnight, and then--I'll think about it. If, when the time comes, you want me to see him I will, and I promise not to be rude to him. But he shan't think that I have been waiting for him, or that I want to have anything to do with him; I shall make that quite plain."

"Then I do hope that you know what not being rude means," put in the Queen; "for I must say that doesn't sound like it."

"Oh, I will provide a safe margin," replied Charlotte. "He shall have nothing to complain of. If I do see him I will be as nice to him as ever I can; much nicer than you have been to me!"

"Now, my dear, don't begin scuffling again!" said her father deprecatingly. "Very well; that's settled then."

"And you will give me that fortnight?"

"Longer, my dear, if you wish."

"No," said the Queen, "a fortnight is quite enough, if she means to spend it pretending to be a Trojan woman."

"If I stay away longer than a fortnight," said Charlotte, "you can send and fetch me." Then she turned to her father. "I am very sorry, papa, ever to have to pain you: but you don't know how dreadful it feels if one isn't allowed to be oneself."

"Oh, don't I?" exclaimed his Majesty. "My dear, if you knew what being a king was really like--but there, we won't talk politics now! By the way, as you came back before we did, do you happen to know what has become of Max?"

"I haven't seen him," said Charlotte with a certain air of discretion; "but I had a line from him in answer to one I wrote on my arrival: and he does seem to have been doing something at last."

"What has he been doing?"

"Getting his head broken."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the Queen. "However did he come to do that?"

"He says he was working among the strikers and got hit. n.o.body knows about it, and he doesn't want it known. He writes that he is being very well looked after at some private nursing place."

"Did he give you the address?" inquired her Majesty suspiciously.

"No; he said he would be home in a day or two, and then we might all come and see him."

"So this is what goes on while I am away!" complained the Queen, as though her being at home might have prevented it. "And I wonder how it was we didn't hear the news. To think of poor Max getting hit like that and the papers saying nothing about it!"

II

Later in the day the King heard more of the matter from the Comptroller-General. It had not been kept out of the papers quite as completely as it should have been. There were rumors, allusions; but none of the leading dailies had said anything.

"I gather, sir," said the General, "that the Prince has been preparing himself very thoroughly for the work of the coming Commission, making personal investigations, mixing daily with the people in the very poorest districts. Of course it was the duty of the detective service to know of it and to take what steps they could to insure his safety. I am told that what actually happened was that on one occasion his Royal Highness went to the aid of the police, hard pressed by a gang of rioters; and he was injured in the general melee. It all took place in a moment and of course no one had any idea that he would involve himself in it. When he was picked up by the detectives he gave a certain address." Here the Comptroller a.s.sumed an air of the utmost discretion.

"To that address he was taken; and there I believe, sir, still remains."